Shot for Shot
by sophie-the-duchess
Summary: When Anna is back home from school for the winter holiday break, she tries to go shot for shot at the bar with her childhood best friend– to mixed results. Modern AU.
1. Chapter 1

Anna Arendelle wasn't a drinker, so trying to go shot for shot with Kristoff Bjorgman wasn't a good idea. Like, at all.

After their seventh shot– which had been some sort of minty, green concoction with a hint of chocolate liqueur– Anna's words had begun to bleed into one another and her eyelids drooped.

"How long have we known each other, Kristoff?"

"Too long," he answered with a snort, setting his shot glass back down on the bartop with a _clink_.

Anna didn't flinch, but only continued to watch him with a goofy, complacent smile. "I'm serious."

Kristoff paused and thought for a moment: she was twenty-one and he was twenty-four, and they'd met when she moved in next door to his adoptive grandfather's house when she was only five, so that meant–

"Sixteen, almost seventeen years."

Anna hummed. That sounded correct to her.

"So, why haven't you yet?"

Kristoff cocked his head at her. "Why haven't I what?"

Her eyes sparkled in the dim light of the bar. "Why haven't you kissed me?"

Instantaneous desire fell like a rock to the pit of his abdomen and his palms began to sweat. When Kristoff didn't answer, but only stared at her with his mouth hanging open, Anna leaned forward.

"Why haven't you kissed me yet, Kristoff?" she repeated, slurring her words. "Don't you want to?"

Of course he'd wanted to kiss her, more times than he could recall, and he'd spent many a night in both middle and high school fantasizing about what it'd be like to kiss his oldest childhood friend. As an athlete, playing hockey in the winters and lacrosse in the summers, he'd often find himself turning down girls left and right, content to be alone to pine for his best female friend from afar. He had even planned on asking her to be his date to his senior prom, but right when he had almost worked up the courage to ask she had started dating Hans Westergaard, their school's resident wealthy pretty boy. They dated on and off throughout Anna's entire high school career, and Kristoff had always been there to pick up the pieces whenever they called it quits before inevitably ending up back together.

But he had never been brave enough to confess his feelings for her.

"I've always wanted you to kiss me, Kristoff," she continued, oblivious to his distress, her blue eyes glazed and innocent. "But you never did. I'm tired of waiting. Won't you kiss me? _Pleeeaaase?_"

She leaned forward even _closer_ to him, close enough that he could smell the scent of her, vanilla perfume and booze and something else so incredibly _her_ that it drove him mad sometimes, and Kristoff gulped. The tip of one of her auburn braids dunked into her half-empty pint of beer, and Kristoff decided that she'd had enough at this point and it was time to go.

"You're drunk, Anna," he said as sternly as he could manage, gesturing for the bartender to cash them out. "Let me take you home."

Anna pouted at him, but didn't protest.

After they had paid, Anna insisted she should chug the last few sips of her warm beer so it wouldn't go to waste, and she did so before they made their way out of the establishment.

But Kristoff couldn't get what she had said out of his head. How did that old saying go? "Drunk words are sober thoughts."

She _wanted_ him to kiss her all along. All the years he'd spent wishing, dreaming, hoping… if he'd only had the balls to take the chance, to shoot his shot, she would have reciprocated his feelings. He had just always been too shy, too reserved– too afraid of ruining what they had between them.

Anna stumbled alongside him as he guided her out of the bar and into the cool night air. She was warm against his side– even through the thick leather of his jacket– as she leaned on him heavily, unsteady in her heeled boots, gripping his arm for support while they walked.

He couldn't take it anymore. He'd waited sixteen or seventeen years for this moment and it was long overdue.

Kristoff stopped them then, turning to face the ginger-haired girl as she fell back to lean against the brick wall of the building.

"Anna."

Her alcohol-weary gaze travelled up to his face, her beautiful eyes boring into his own.

He cupped her face in his hands and leaned down, closing the distance between them with a newfound confidence, and pressed his lips to hers. She was slow to react, but after a moment had passed she puckered her lips as he claimed her mouth, deepening the kiss. Anna whimpered and fisted her hands in the front of his coat, unable to do much else in her inebriated state.

When Kristoff broke the kiss and pulled away, Anna stared at him, stunned and breathless, her lips parted slightly. "Why did you do that?"

Kristoff paled, his confidence suddenly gone. "You… you asked me to. Back in the bar."

"I did?" Anna bit her lip and swayed on her feet. Her cheeks were flushed and pink, but Kristoff couldn't be sure if it was from their kiss, the alcohol, the cold nip of the evening breeze, or some combination of all three. "Oh… I don't remember."

Kristoff began to feel guilty, but then her head snapped up and she grinned a lopsided grin.

"Can we do it again?"

Kristoff laughed and took his best friend in his arms, pulling her body against his and wrapping himself around her. He placed a tender kiss on the top of her head. "Maybe when you're sober, Princess. But right now we should get you home."


	2. Chapter 2

The front door swung open with much more force than Anna intended, colliding with the wall with a resounding _bang_. Luckily, her older sister was still out of town for work, and would be until at least the following day, so the intoxicated pair wouldn't be waking anyone up with their obnoxiously loud entry in the middle of the night.

Anna stepped into the dark house first, followed by Kristoff; while he stooped to remove his boots, Anna continued onward towards the kitchen, her own heeled booties clacking on the hardwood floor all the way, flicking on lights as she went.

By the time Kristoff had hung up his winter coat and caught up with Anna in the kitchen, she was already elbows-deep in the cabinet above the stove, digging around for something.

"Don't you want to take off your jacket and boots?" he questioned.

"I'm still cold from the walk here," Anna answered without turning around, the contents of the cabinet clattering as she continued her mission to find whatever it was she was looking for with the kind of determination that only a drunk girl freshly home from the bar could have.

Kristoff hesitated briefly before crossing the kitchen; daring to be bold, he stood behind Anna and wrapped his arms around her midsection, hugging her lightly.

Anna paused her search as she was embraced by large, burly arms; she could feel the heat radiating from Kristoff's skin even through the haze of her own tipsiness and the sleeves of his thermal henley.

"Kristoff… what are you doing?" she asked in a whisper.

He swallowed thickly, replying in a hushed tone of his own: "Trying to warm you up."

"Oh." She leaned back into him, just a little.

"Is it working?"

"Yes." She felt the blush on her cheeks redden deeper, and not from the alcohol. "Why are we whispering?"

"... I don't know."

After another minute, he pulled away, removing her jacket from her shoulders to take it with him to the foyer; when he returned, she had two coffee mugs sitting on the counter beside a tin of instant hot cocoa mix. She had pulled a container of milk from the fridge, and was pouring it into the stovetop kettle.

"You're making hot chocolate?"

Anna shrugged as she flicked the burner on. "I have a craving for it."

"It's almost midnight already." Kristoff double-checked the clock on the microwave. "Wouldn't you rather go to bed?"

Anna looked up at him from where she was screwing the cap back onto the milk and raised her eyebrows. "Like, with you?"

"No, I just mean in general. Like, to sleep."

"I'm not tired."

She added a splash of dark rum to each of the mugs before scooting Kristoff's across the counter, towards him. He lifted the mug and sniffed it, the intense tang of the spiced liquor burning his nostrils.

"Didn't we already drink enough at the bar?"

"Lighten up, Kris. It's Christmas Eve… _Eve,_" she admonished, counting in her fingers to make sure she had her days straight. "We're celebrating!"

She raised her mug to his and tapped the ceramic sides with a clink, before downing her shot. Kristoff followed suit, and when he set his mug back on the countertop she topped it off with another pour of the rum, followed by the powdered hot cocoa mix, and filled the rest of the mug to the brim with hot milk from the kettle. She mixed it all together with a spoon and topped each mug off with a spiral of whipped topping from a can.

"Come on, let's go to the living room," Anna said with a tick of her head in the direction of the other side of the small house. Kristoff followed her, albeit hesitantly, his nerves still frazzled from their one-time drunken kiss back at the bar only an hour earlier. She, on the other hand, seemed to be taking the entire thing in stride… unless she had already forgotten in her intoxicated state. She had drank just as much as he did, but she was also much smaller and was known to have a much lower tolerance, In fact, Kristoff's own buzz was already starting to fade fast, even with the double shot of rum.

When Kristoff reached the living room, he was surprised to see that the Christmas tree that Anna's family had put up every year for as long as he could remember since they were kids was out, but it was naked, completely devoid of any ornaments or lights. There were a few wrapped presents under the tree already, alongside a stack of plastic storage totes that he surmised must be where the Christmas decorations were kept. Anna was in the corner beside the television set, messing with her older sister's record player; in no time, the crooning, bluesy voice of Elvis was filling the room with scratchy old Christmas tunes. Upon straightening up and turning around, she waltzed over to Kristoff with her mug of cocoa in hand, her hips swaying exaggeratedly to the music, and caught him eyeing the bare tree with intrigue.

"Normally Elsa and I decorate the tree together– well, _I_ decorate while she dictates her vision from the couch– but since she won't be home until tomorrow she told me I can go ahead and decorate it if I want," Anna explained.

Kristoff nodded, not sure what to do with the information. His adopted family was Jewish, but they still liked any reason to celebrate, and so they'd had a Christmas tree and decorated it together as a family every year. He knew that Anna and Elsa used to do the same with their parents, before the tragic accident that claimed their lives when the girls were still in high school.

"Do you want to help?"

Kristoff's attention was snapped back to her. "Huh?"

Anna giggled and the sound was like the tinkling of a bell. "Do you want to help me decorate the tree?"

"Are you sure you want me to?" Kristoff gulped. "I'm not a very good… decorator."

"Of course," Anna smiled at him and Kristoff felt like he could melt into a puddle in the center of the living room carpet. "There's no one else I'd rather spend time with tonight than you. If you want to stay, that is."

As if she had planned for it, the music switched suddenly to a slow song; drawing on the same courage he had found back at the bar, he reached forward and pulled Anna close to him, swaying her gently in what he hoped she interpreted as a dance.

"I'd love to stay with you," he murmured, their noses close enough to touch. She closed the distance between them to seal his lips with a kiss, holding it longer than their first kiss, until it had the chance to make its full impact from the tops of their heads to the tips of their toes.

They spent the midnight hour dancing and laughing, putting ornaments and garlands on the tree with childish excitement, working together to strategize a color scheme that balanced out both sides of the artificial evergreen. Kristoff couldn't remember a time that he had ever felt so happy with his friendship with Anna, his childhood best friend, who was quickly and certainly becoming more. _Much_ more.

When at last they had finished, Anna turned out the lights to allow the string lights on the tree to shine and sparkle on their own, giving the room a hazy, cozy glow. The young couple sat on the sofa to enjoy their handiwork, and fell asleep with Anna's head tucked under Kristoff's chin, against his beating heart, their matching mugs of cocoa cold and forgotten on the coffee table.


End file.
